Sunday, 5 January 2014

I have managed to squeeze in a small amount of spinning and knitting over the festive season.

Here is 'Copper penny in the soot' 2 ply merino in black and rust, with gold angelina, around 152 yards, 4 oz. It is lovely and soft.

Another 2 ply merino, this one is called 'At the edge of the Arctic ice' 130 yds, 3 oz.

"The first fog of Winter" I have spun this one from carded batt that I purchased at the most recent Winghams sampling day in Lavenham. The blend is a mix of merino and silk. It is the Winter Wonderland blend

I knitted up some more fingerless gloves in handspun.

In an attempt to try and get on better with the Louet S10 I am challenging myself to see how fine I can spin on it. I don't think I am doing too badly so far, I have laced the flyer, taken the brake band off and made lofty rolags. Maybe I have just fallen out of practice with her!

Thursday, 2 January 2014

Oh dear, I haven't done well with posting - it's been so long.
The Christmas break is nearly over and I will be back at work on Monday. If has gone by so quickly, we had my mum staying for the first week and while she was here paid a visit to my brother in Norwich. All the photos that I took while there are out of focus apart from a few of my nephews gang of toys! (slightly strange) I don't know if it is the gloomy light that has dominated recently or if I just can't work the camera but the photos I have taken have been very disappointing.

Rob did a fantastic job icing the Christmas cake that I had made back at the end of October. Most of the cake has now been eaten.

I managed to do some carding, I had planned to call this one 'Copper Penny' but on reflection there doesn't seem to be enough copper in the resulting yarn. The batts were made from black and rust merino and gold angelina. All from World of Wool.

here it is being spun. I am just about to ply it.
I also created these batts that I intend to spin as singles using the Westbury wheel. I seem to be returning to the Westbury. For reasons unknown to me I seem to be overspinning and creating yarn with too much twist on the Louet.

I have just ordered a big batch of fibre to dye up from World of Wool, it might get here before the end of the weekend in which case I will have a dyeing session.

Tea dyed paper

While I have been on holiday I have been watching craft videos on Youtube, it is surprising what you come across, normally I keep to soaping videos but recently when browsing came across a bizarre rendition of the 12 days of Christmas from a firm in the North of England who produce Epoxy Resin.

I also came across a paper artist The PaperAddiction who has some lovely videos for paper crafts.

Armed with old tea bags I set about distressing some paper this morning. Here are the results.